Open Access Books

Published

This book examines the European commercial landscape of the early China trade, c.1700–1750. It looks at the foundational period of Sino-European commerce and explores a world of private enterprise beneath the surface of the official East India Company structures. Using rich private trade records, it analyses the making of pan-European markets, distribution networks and patterns of investment that together reveal a new geography of a trading system previously studied mostly at Canton. By considering the interloping activities of British-born merchants working for the smaller East India Companies, the book uncovers the commercial practices and cross-Company collaborations, both legal and illicit, that sustained the growth of the China trade: smuggling, wholesale trading, private commissions and the manipulation of Company auctions.

This book explores the magic of spontaneous play self-organized by children. Outdoor play must be encouraged in kindergarten, in school and in community settings. Today, much of the time and play of children is organized by adults. This book is about the magic of self-organized play. Children express joy and independence in outdoor play. The author takes us along to play venues outdoors, showing us how cliffs, trees and groves are cherished sites of play. The book presents findings from two research projects on outdoor play, one from a kindergarten setting, one from school setting. In her research, Merete Lund Fasting has followed children in their play in the woods, along cliffs, in playgrounds and biking in their near surroundings, providing her with unique insights into the world of play.

¿Cuáles son los tipos de conocimiento que se producen y reproducen en la universidad? ¿Cuáles son los principales desafíos a los que se enfrentó esta institución durante los últimos cuarenta años y que hoy enfrenta más que nunca? ¿Es posible descolonizarla? Guiado por los anteriores interrogantes, este libro analiza la constante amenaza a la que la universidad se enfrenta como bien público y establece coordenadas para garantizar su futuro. Apostando a que este espacio puede valorar y transmitir el conocimiento nacido de la lucha, Boaventura de Sousa Santos presenta y analiza propuestas para demostrar que es posible convertir la profunda crisis que afecta a la universidad en una oportunidad para cambiarla en un sentido plural, emancipador e involucrado de manera activa en las epistemologías del Sur.

The Art Exhibit at ICIDS 2019 (International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling) is a celebration of artworks relevant to the field of interactive storytelling through the curated theme: “The Expression of Emotion in Humans and Technology.” This exhibit features work from 13 Digital Storytellers. Three certificates of excellence were awarded. Fragile Equilibrium received the ‘Excellence in Visual Design’ award, Simmer received the ‘Excellence in Innovation’ award, and Healer received ‘Best of Show,’ and the jury felt was the embodiment of the curatorial theme with a mastery of visual design and technology.

A higher purpose is not simply about profit. Symbolising the motivations of our actions and efforts, it reflects something much more aspirational and contributes to our global society. This open access book offers novel solutions to ensure employees support a wider organizational meaning whilst guaranteeing that the company benefits from the employee’s individual sense of purpose. Advocating a shift from previous models and theories, this book contributes to debate and offers insight for both scholars and practitioners. The chapters bring together academic rigour and practical models to help readers distinguish between the fads and influential strategies. Exploring the development of purpose at each level of business, from strategy and leadership to communication, this book avoids theoretical jargon and provides new approaches to building sustainable purpose-driven organizations. This is an Open Access book sponsored by DPMC Spain, UIC Barcelona and Corporate Excellence - Centre for Reputation Leadership

Published

Cadmium (Cd) is an environmental toxicant of continuing public health concern worldwide, because total diet studies have shown that Cd is present in virtually all foodstuffs. Consequently, foods that are frequently consumed in large quantities, such as rice, potatoes, wheat, leafy salad vegetables, and other cereal crops, are the most significant dietary Cd sources. Moreover, Cd has chemical propensities that confer the potential to interfere with the physiological functions of calcium and zinc. Evidence of a wide range of diverse, toxic effects of Cd is increasingly apparent. In this collection, environmental Cd exposure is linked to an increased risk of chronic kidney disease that is known to be a cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Cd is also implicated in an early onset of menarche and deaths from cancer, especially in the uterus, kidney, and urinary tract. Moreover, Cd-induced kidney injury is replicated in Sprague Dawley rats, as is Cd-induced periodontal disease. Experimental studies suggest that the development of kidneys in fetuses and the function of insulin-producing cells may be adversely affected by Cd and that metformin, an anti-diabetic drug, is ineffective in Cd-intoxicated Wistar rats.

Death Rights presents an antiracist critique of British romanticism by deconstructing one of its organizing tropes—the suicidal creative "genius." Putting texts by Olaudah Equiano, Mary Shelley, John Keats, and others into critical conversation with African American literature, black studies, and feminist theory, Deanna P. Koretsky argues that romanticism is part and parcel of the legal and philosophical discourses underwriting liberal modernity's antiblack foundations. Read in this context, the trope of romantic suicide serves a distinct political function, indexing the limits of liberal subjectivity and (re)inscribing the rights and freedoms promised by liberalism as the exclusive province of white men. The first book-length study of suicide in British romanticism, Death Rights also points to the enduring legacy of romantic ideals in the academy and contemporary culture more broadly. Koretsky challenges scholars working in historically Eurocentric fields to rethink their identification with epistemes rooted in antiblackness. And, through discussions of recent cultural touchstones such as Kurt Cobain's resurgence in hip-hop and Victor LaValle's comic book sequel to Frankenstein, Koretsky provides all readers with a trenchant analysis of how eighteenth-century ideas about suicide continue to routinize antiblackness in the modern world. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships Open Book Program—a limited competition designed to make outstanding humanities books available to a wide audience. Learn more at the Fellowships Open Book Program website at: https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/FOBP, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/1712.

Christian theologies today struggle to make themselves relevant and respected in public discussions. One reason is a tendency among theologians to restrict themselves to discussions among their own. In this way they seldom contribute to discussions and make claims that are heard as important for people not belonging to the world of faith and piety. This volume has a different goal. The intention is to bring updated and critical contributions to how theology can give substantial reflections relevant to a broader public. The volume takes its starting point from ongoing international discussions on the universal. From post-colonial and post-liberal positions one claim that universal claims are oppressive. There is a long history of how universal pretentions covered for white, male and European supremacy. For this reason one argues that only positionalities from particular position are able to give hope and future to oppressed people and environmental collapses. The contributions to this volume agree that there are toxic universalities that need to be strongly criticized. There are, however, also universalities that can defend the human and the nature. Scandinavian Creation Theology builds these universalities from life as given and pre-theoretical experiences. Here, there are potentialities for future non-toxic universalities.

Petri Nets are graphical and mathematical tool used in many different science domains. Their characteristic features are the intuitive graphical modeling language and advanced formal analysis method. The concurrence of performed actions is the natural phenomenon due to which Petri Nets are perceived as mathematical tool for modeling concurrent systems. The nets whose model was extended with the time model can be applied in modeling real-time systems. Petri Nets were introduced in the doctoral dissertation by K.A. Petri, titled “„Kommunikation mit Automaten” and published in 1962 by University of Bonn. During more than 40 years of development of this theory, many different classes were formed and the scope of applications was extended. Depending on particular needs, the net definition was changed and adjusted to the considered problem. The unusual “flexibility” of this theory makes it possible to introduce all these modifications. Owing to varied currently known net classes, it is relatively easy to find a proper class for the specific application. The present monograph shows the whole spectrum of Petri Nets applications, from classic applications (to which the theory is specially dedicated) like computer science and control systems, through fault diagnosis, manufacturing, power systems, traffic systems, transport and down to Web applications. At the same time, the publication describes the diversity of investigations performed with use of Petri Nets in science centers all over the world.

How people traveled, and how people wrote about travel, changed in the interwar years. Novel technologies eased travel conditions, breeding new iterations of the colonizing gaze. The sense that another war was coming lent urgency and anxiety to the search for new places and “authentic” experiences. In Interwar Itineraries: Authenticity in Anglophone and French Travel Writing, Emily O. Wittman identifies a diverse group of writers from two languages who embarked on such quests. For these writers, authenticity was achieved through rugged adventure abroad to economically poorer destinations. Using translation theory and new approaches in travel studies and global modernisms, Wittman links and complicates the symbolic and rhetorical strategies of writers including André Gide, Ernest Hemingway, Michel Leiris, Isak Dinesen, Beryl Markham, among others, that offer insight into the high ethical stakes of travel and allow us to see in new ways how models of the authentic self are built and maintained through asymmetries of encounter.

With the growing energy demand and the urgent need to face global climate change and environmental pollution issues, the development of nanostructured electrode materials has become a key research hotpot for advanced energy technologies. The unique and outstanding features of these materials, arising from the ability to suitably tailor their structural and functional properties, are pivotal to optimizing performance, durability, efficiency, environmental sustainability and scalability for commercial applications. This Reprint presents a curated collection of research articles highlighting recent progress in the synthesis, fabrication, functionalization and technological applications of nanostructured electrode materials. Topics include advanced fabrication methods, green synthesis approaches, in-depth studies on the properties and performance of electrode materials and their electrochemical applications in electrocatalysis, energy conversion, energy storage and thermoelectric materials. The advances and insights presented here contribute to the progress in the field of nanostructured electrode materials and provide a valuable reference for researchers, scientists, and engineers, providing cutting-edge solutions to meet the growing demand for efficient and sustainable energy technologies.

In recent years, food systems in most Western countries have begun the transition towards an approach that is more respectful of the environment and consumer health. Through Food Policy Councils and other innovative forms of cooperation, various stakeholders from institutional, industrial, economic and civil society circles are engaged in the implementation, evaluation and adaptation of sustainable food systems. Beyond the universal right to food, food democracy expresses this desire to transform agri-food systems by empowering as many stakeholders as possible to change the status quo. Volume 11 of the RESSOR collection brings together contributions from social science researchers and SSE actors on the transformation of the food system through collective action.

Lottaz, Iwama, and their contributors investigate the role of neutral and nonaligned European states during the negotiations for the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Focusing on the years from the Irish Resolution of 1958 until the treaty’s opening for signatures ten years later, the nine chapters written by area experts highlight the processes and reasons for the political and diplomatic actions the neutrals took, and how those impacted the multilateral treaty negotiations. The book reveals new aspects of the dynamics that lead to this most consequential multilateral breakthrough of the Cold War. In part one, three chapters analyze the international system from a bird’s eye perspective, discussing neutrality, nonalignment, and the nuclear order. The second part features six detailed case studies on the politics and diplomacy of Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and Yugoslavia. Overall, this study suggests that despite the volatile and dangerous nature of the early Cold War, the balance of the strategic environment enabled actors that were not part of one or the other alliance system to play a role in the interlocking global politics that finally created the nuclear regime that defines international relations until today. A valuable resource for scholars of nonproliferation, the Cold War, neutrality, nonalignment, and area studies.